THE NIGHT STALKER - "A Real Horror Story" (1972)

 Before the TV series "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" premiered in 1974, there were two Kolchak movies made for TV, "The Night Stalker" in 1972, and then, "The Night Strangler" in 1973.

Welcome to the Wild Wednesday version of life in The Dungeon.

It doesn't take a lot of thought to know this film was shot in Las Vegas!

"The Night Stalker" is very similar to the first episode of "Kolchak: The Night Stalker." A lot of women are being murdered on a regular basis, but the big difference is that instead of Jack The Ripper, the culprit in this story is a real-life vampire.

Lucky Carl Kolchak, he has a beautiful girlfriend named Gail Foster, and she's played by lovely Carol Lynley who was exactly 20 years younger than Darren McGavin.

 

 

"Why can't I figure this out?"

The dead bodies just keep piling up, and nobody wants to hear about Kolchak's vampire theories.

"The Night Stalker" has a great cast that includes Claude Akin there in the middle as Sheriff Butcher. Claude Akin probably played more Sheriff's than almost anybody in his career, including Sheriff Elroy P. Lobo. He was also in two episodes of "The Twilight Zone," "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street," and "The Little People." 

Kolchak has a tendency to get frustrated and take it out on himself!

How often do you get to see two guys that played the same character in their careers acting together? Well, that's what you have here. Both Darren McGavin and Ralph Meeker were also Mike Hammer at one time or another. Ralph was Mike Hammer in the epic "Kiss Me Deadly" in 1955, and Darren McGavin was Mike Hammer in the TV series of the same name in 1958 to 1959.

Here Ralph plays Kolchak's buddy, FBI agent Bernie Jenks.

This is about as sexy as Carl and Gail's relationship gets, but before it's over, he actually asks her to marry him.

Yet another body drained of blood with big chomp bites on her neck!

A witness is finally able to give a description of the slayer.

Looks like a vampire to me! Barry Atwater is the vampire known as Janos Skorzeny. Barry Atwater was also in "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street," and was in an episode of "The Outer Limits" called "Corpus Earthling." Barry was the kind of actor that could be in five episodes of "Gunsmoke" as characters with colourful names like Paw Yewker, Harp, Ed Eby, Jesse Daggett and Mr. Bowen.

The vampire needs a lot of blood, and since he can't kill everybody, he sometimes has to make a withdrawal from the local blood bank.

The cops were ready for him this time, but despite getting shot something like 30 times, he still gets away! Maybe Kolchak is onto something with this vampire business.

Another Dungeon hero Elisha (House On Haunted Hill, The Black Zoo) Cook Jr. has a small part as Mickey Crawford.

How many times can they catch this guy, and how many times can he possibly get away? The opportunities are endless!

Just like in the tale of "The Ripper," Kolchak discovers where the villain lives, and decides to go it on his own, but this time he comes armed to the teeth with a crucifix and a wooden stake and mallet!

It's just before dawn, so Kolchak is able to fend him off, and buy himself a little time.

Kolchak is just a reporter, not a policeman, and if they would have just believed him, he wouldn't have found himself in such a precarious predicament!

The sun comes up, and Carl Kolchak has to take business into his own hands!

He gets the story, and feels like this is the one that he will be able to retire on, but instead, the story gets squashed, they send Gail out of town and won't tell him where, and he's told that if he doesn't get out of town immediately, they are going to press murder charges against him.

Sounds about right! What a way to treat a hero!

LIGHTS OUT / "The Faceless Man" - 1951

In this above average production, Francis Carvel goes to a plastic surgeon to get a new face after years of ugliness. Now handsome, he returns to a French inn where the owner's daughter had spurned his affection a year earlier. But complicating matters is his new travelling companion, a disfigured man in bandages that seems to know everything about him...

It stars Robert Sterling as Francis Carvel, Ted Hecht as the mysterious Man, Patricia Reardon as Laure, Louis Sorin as the Inn Keeper and Laure's father and Gregory Morton as the Doctor.

The story starts with Francis ready to have his bandages removed after his plastic surgery.

Francis likes what he sees!

Here's a photo of him before the plastic surgery as a reminder of what he used to look like, pretty amazing what they could do way back in 1951...

The doctor has another photo of Francis for his files. Francis wants that one too, but the doc says.. No! And he recommends that Francis see a psychotherapist to explore what makes him such an unpleasant person to be around.

When the doctor has his back turned, Francis grabs a scalpel off a tray and goes to town on him! For some reason, Francis doesn't want anyone to know anything about him.

As he's leaving the doctor's office, Francis comes face to face with a disfigured man in bandages that seems to know many things about him. After holding a short conversation with Francis, the man leaves after Francis asks ... Do I know you?

Francis checks in at the French Inn where he stayed in the past. And where the Inn Keeper's daughter there, Laure, had spurned his advances.

Laure has a creepy feeling about the man, he reminds her of that despicable person that used to stay there. But pops says she's being silly.

Francis goes up to his room and guess who's waiting there for him!

Francis tells the man to remove his mask! The man replies... You wouldn't like what you see! Francis is a little afraid of the guy some decides to just ignore him.

He has more important things to do, like asking Laure to marry him! He gives her a necklace he stole from the doctor to seal the deal, and goes back to his room to wait for her decision...

But when Laure opens the box, a strangler's cord is found there, not a necklace!

Back at the ranch, the masked man is spouting all kinds of accusations towards Francis including the fact that he's also a murdering strangler!!

There's a loud knock on the door and Laure's dad wants to know what the Hell's going on, giving his daughter a strangler's cord!! Francis tells him to come back after he figures out what happened with the necklace.

Francis is beside himself, he snatches the mask off the man and lo and behold, it's him, Francis, before he got the plastic surgery!

Freaking out, Francis backs toward the open window, grabs the curtain cord and falls through!

Laure and dad rush outside to see the curtain cord wrapped around his hands, then dad notices something else...

It's the disfigured man that used to stay at the Inn!! What a wild ride!

ELVIS AND HIS MUSIC IN THE MOVIES - "Part One" (1957 - 1968)

 

We never talk about Elvis Aaron Presley much, and I'm not quite sure why, because he was just as much a part of our lives growing up as The Three Stooges were, so that's why this Saturday Night Special is dedicated to the memory of the movies of the man iconic enough to be known by a one word name, and that would be

ELVIS!

Elvis's first movie was "Love Me Tender," and his second film was called "Loving You," and in it he performs one of his biggest hits, "(Let Me Be You) Teddy Bear," that was number one for seven weeks in 1957. The other side of that single was the title from this movie. His love interest in this film was Lizabeth Scott.

 

 

 A much funner song is the one he performs at this outdoor barbeque called "Let's Have A Party," that never even charted in the U.S., but was a big number two in the U.K. with the shortened title of "Party."

These stills are from Elvis's third film "Jailhouse Rock," and the song Elvis, Scotty Moore and the boys were doing was called "Treat me Nice" that charted at #27 in 1958. "Treat Me Nice" was the B side to to the title song "Jailhouse Rock," that was number one for seven straight weeks in 1957.

In 1965, Elvis made a movie called "Tickle Me" with Julie Adams of "Creature From The Black Lagoon" fame.

In "Tickle Me," Elvis  performed a song called "Night Rider," written by Doc Pomus and  Mort Shuman.

In the 1960 film titled "G.I. Blues," the big E performed "Doin' The Best I Can," another tune penned by Doc Pomus and  Mort Shuman, who I would assume have families that are very wealthy these days.

 

In 1968, Elvis was in "Speedway" with Nancy Sinatra and Beverly Hills.

In "Speedway" he performed "Let Yourself Go" which only made it to #71 on the Billboard Charts.

 

Back to 1958 and Elvis's fourth film "Kid Creole."

By my count, The King performed twelve songs in this film. This one was called "New Orleans."

In 1963 Elvis made a movie called "Fun In Acapulco" with Ursula Andress and Elsa Cárdenas.

 

The crazy song Elvis performed in this movie was called "Bossa Nova Baby" and was one of eleven songs in the film.

Not sure what all that "Fun In Acapulco" included, but the choreography on this song goes to a surreal other level!

Elvis starred in 31 movies, and that was only six of them, and his music is so enduring, it was been used in over 650 soundtracks over the years.

 

 

In fact, I liked "Boss Nova Baby" so much, I thought you should see it too!

Elvis really was The King of something, and it's hard to believe that he only lived to be 42 years old, but that's because he also had a dark side that also included a place

 "Where Only Elvis Can Smell Us!"